


Parselblade

by filenotch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Knifeplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-23
Updated: 2004-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filenotch/pseuds/filenotch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an accident that Severus Snape found out what Lucius Malfoy needed, even if it wasn't what either of them wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parselblade

**Author's Note:**

> This is not meant as kinkfic, though it may appeal to some as such. Also, I learned after writing this that according to JKR, LM is seven years older than SS. In this story, he is two years older. My ignorance.

**Today**

"Please."

He kneels, face to the floor, silver hair hiding his face. White lines trace his pale skin in patterns, radiating out from the scar of a snake on his back. His arms are outstretched, palms up. A dagger balances on the tips of his fingers, dark metal a contrast to his whiteness. His breath is shallow, barely controlled.

The begging voice does not whine. It groans with the dark tenor of need.

"Please."

Severus Snape paces a tight circle, letting the hem of his robe brush naked skin. "Please what, Lucius?"

"Please take the knife."

Snape lets him suffer, walking another round. He contemplates the cruelest thing he could do, which would be to say no and leave Malfoy to his frustration. But that will not do.

He could stretch this out, making dozens of small cuts and giving time for each to burn. He could make it fast, and trace the white scar of the snake he has drawn and redrawn in Lucius Malfoy's skin. Either will end with Malfoy in a rictus of pain and pleasure, and Snape will depart without a word. He never knows what happens after. He only knows what will happen now. He bends down to pick up the knife from the trembling fingers, his gorge rising. He does not want to do this. He has never wanted to do this.

***

**20 Years ago**

He expected Potter and his friends to jeer at him, suspended as he was upside down with his underpants displayed to the world. He did not expect to hear the voice of Lucius Malfoy chuckling at his predicament in public, and not keeping his disdain to privacy of the Slytherin common room.

Had he not been in his predicament he would have fired off a curse in anger that Malfoy did not protest the treatment of a fellow Slytherin, and endured the subsequent mercies of Crabbe and Goyle as payment for the impulse. By the time it was all over, though, Malfoy was gone, and Snape had time to think and nurse his grudge. Loyalty was part of the Slytherin code. Malfoy's behaviour would have to be corrected.

A month of research to create the recipe, a summer to find the knife and the sapphires, weeks to grind the stones and brew the potion, another month of planning after the start of term. He was patient.

The corridor was isolated. Malfoy walked alone. Severus was ready.

He had practiced on Potter's gang, endured Potter's jeers that his curses were weak. But he had wanted to learn to make them weak. "Stupefy," he said, in the offhand way he'd perfected. Malfoy staggered, rather than fall insensible. Severus came from hiding to guide the groggy boy to a side corridor, and then to the floor. He needed him awake for the spell to work. "Petrificus Totalis," he murmured, the attenuated spell leaving Malfoy unable to struggle, but only for a short while. He had to work quickly.

He arranged Malfoy face down and drew the robes up over the silvery blond head. The boy's underwear was old-fashioned, reaching down to his knees. The back above was bare. Not for long.

Severus placed the tip of his knife at the left shoulder blade, and in sure strokes cut, first sweeping up, then down and in for the curve of the snake's body, swirling the tail loop in the centre of the spine, turning the point of the tail on the right shoulder blade, then reversing the pattern to finish at the head. He had practiced the motions over and over, but his sureness wavered in the face of cutting skin. The knife was razor sharp and did not drag, but the sight of the blood was, stupidly, unexpected. Malfoy's rising groan was also unforeseen. Severus did not let himself waver, tracing the body of the snake in one continuous slice. With two quick twists he drew the eyes in Malfoy's flesh.

With the jabs that made the eyes, the groan reached a muffled pitch, then faded, leaving Malfoy panting. Severus took the vial of the potion he had named Fideleatus from his pocket and dripped it carefully over the wound.

"Fidelis Slytherin," he whispered, letting the potion mix with blood.

As he pulled the robes back into place he smelled something unmistakable. Mixed with the copper scent of blood and the mint in the potion was the distinctive odour of male spunk.

Before he could make sense of it, he heard voices. Lupin and Black. Severus scrambled to his feet and down the corridor, misjudging his direction. He ran straight past the two Griffyndors, startling them and escaping with no more than a "What's wrong, Snivellus?"

Malfoy would be able to hear them. Malfoy would know who had done it. Snape knew was dead.

But nothing happened for weeks. He slunk around avoiding the Slytherin common room, even skipping meals the first days. When he saw Malfoy at last, the older student's eyes slid past him with their usual pointed lack of notice. All continued as before until Sirius Black tried an Impedimenta jinx to trip Severus in the hallway.

Malfoy gathered Crabbe and Goyle with a meaningful glance, and strode up to Black. "Attack one Slytherin, you attack us all, and we'll defend ourselves."

Black was alone, but could not pass up a smart remark. "You mean your henchmen will defend you while you look on."

"It's all the same," Malfoy shrugged, as if ignoring Black's presumption. "Slytherins look after their own."

"Even Snivellus?" Black asked, snorting with genuine surprise. "Not even you talk to him, Malfoy."

"He is a Slytherin, Black, as you should have been." Malfoy smirked. "But you're the black sheep of the Black family."

Crabbe and Goyle laughed more than the jest deserved.

Severus laughed, too, in relief and because he was happy the loyalty spell had worked. In the weeks that followed, he began to think that perhaps Malfoy had been groggy enough not to hear Lupin and Black calling out the hated nickname.

He was wrong.

The corridor was isolated. Severus walked alone. Malfoy was ready.

Severus felt the stun hit him, and blacked out.

Malfoy must have dragged him into the same empty corridor and spoken the counter curse. Severus woke leaning against the wall and saw quickly that he was trapped. He began to prepare himself to endure whatever revenge was planned, but he noticed that Malfoy was alone. Crabbe and Goyle did his dirty work; Malfoy would never sully his hands. Snape prepared himself for magic or blackmail.

Instead, Malfoy looked at him, perplexity under his usual hauteur. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Don't play innocent with me!" Malfoy said with impatience. "I had to walk back to Slytherin with my robes folded so that the stain wouldn't show."

Severus held his expression still, realizing that Malfoy did not mean bloodstains on the back of his robe. He looked up into the pale face and found it flushed. It wasn't impatience; it was a complex expression of shame, annoyance and desire. Something about his spell made Lucius Malfoy get off, and Malfoy wanted it again.

Severus moved the muscles of his face into an unfamiliar expression. As best he could without a mirror, he tried to copy the Malfoy sneer. It would one day become a tool of instruction feared by students, but now it was new. With the new expression came a new emotion he could not have named. What he did know was that he had something on Malfoy.

His mind moved quickly. "Did you know you wanted it, Lucius?" he drawled.

Malfoy's eyes narrowed, and a muscle in his cheek twitched.

Wrapped in his new emotion, Snape ignored the warning. "Well, I couldn't very well have said, 'Hike up your robe and let me cut you. Trust me, you'll like it.'"

"What did you do to me?" Malfoy sounded as if the dam of his veneer was breaking.

"Apparently, I gave you what you wanted," Severus said, and for the first time the derision in his voice was not a weak defence. He was disgusted at the thought of someone enjoying being held helpless and cut. He had endured too much to understand how anyone could take pleasure in being the victim.

"I haven't been able to think about anything else," Malfoy said, his flush deepening as the words tumbled out.

Severus sensed the opening he was being given. "Do you want it again?"

Malfoy licked his lips reflexively, easing the passage of an unfamiliar word.

"Please."

****

**Fifteen Years Ago**

Severus cringed inwardly at the sound of the woman's scream. Bellatrix LeStrange was a master of pain curses, and she was not working alone. Severus didn't recognize the other Death Eater participating in the torture, but whoever it was enjoyed humiliating the victim. He used the Imperius Curse to make the woman cower on all fours, like a kicked dog.

A semicircle of hooded figures around the Dark Lord's throne watched it all happen, most of them rapt. Severus didn't know the victim, didn't know why she might be important or why the Death Eaters should take an interest. He had learned it didn't matter. Sometimes torture was politics, and sometimes it was entertainment.

Politics he understood; entertainment he did not. It was important to hide his revulsion from the Dark Lord and over the years he had mastered Occlumency to this end. He cleared his mind and replaced his thoughts with images of Lucius Malfoy, naked against the wall as Severus trailed the knife up his legs and around his buttocks, leaving occasional nicks in the skin. Such images amused the Dark Lord. He let his aversion to Malfoy's lusts show, and let the Dark Lord assume he gave Malfoy what he demanded because he liked to see the snob reduced to a begging pile of sweat and want.

It had once been true.

He gave less than half his attention to the scene before him until the other hooded figures began to laugh. When he looked, the woman was suspended upside down, bright flowered knickers displayed to the world, discoloured by the reflex leak of wastes.

Somewhere behind façade of his Occluded brain, something deep within Severus snapped. He knew he did not belong here – not just here watching torture, but among the Death Eaters at all.

Days later he would have it all sorted out, have a rationale for that instant's certainty, have a plan to extricate himself. All he knew in that instant was that the scene was not entertainment. It was warning for any who might fail. "This could be you," ran unspoken underneath. Severus would later tell himself he could serve no one who wasted humiliation and pain for little more than threat. Some days he would believe it.

He spent weeks with his heart halved. He had gained much in power and knowledge from the Death Eaters, and they infused him with a sense of purpose he was loath to give up. The arrival of an owl from Hogwarts started his path, not into the light, for he would never leave the dark, but at least into the shadows. "Please come on Thursday next, if it's convenient," Dumbledore had written in answer to his query.

The interview began innocently enough.

"You are interested in teaching at Hogwarts?" Dumbledore asked after bland pleasantries had been exchanged. "What subject did you have in mind, Severus?"

"Defence Against the Dark Arts," he answered. "I have some experience in that area."

"So I understand," said Dumbledore mildly, but his eyes moved meaningfully toward the Dark Mark hidden beneath the sleeve of Severus' robe.

For a moment, Severus was unable to speak, consternation at this exposure tying his tongue.

Dumbledore let the silence stretch until Severus said at last, "I do not belong there." He looked up to meet Dumbledore's eyes. The familiar reflexes of Occlumancy began to engage, and with some effort he removed his defences, and held the stare.

At last Dumbledore said, "I do not think it would be good for you to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, but I do need a Potions master. I understand you have some skill in that area. If I recall correctly, you invented the Fideleatus potion while a student here at Hogwarts."

Severus blanched and lowered his eyes. How could Dumbledore know these things about him?

"I have watched you for years, Severus," the Headmaster answered as if to a spoken thought. "You have great promise, but you have been—" He broke off for a moment, then found his thought: "You have been a seed sown in poor soil. You are welcome to replant yourself here. We shall see which way you grow."

The lack of complete trust was, in some ways, a relief. Six months before Voldemort was hit by the reflection of his own curse, Snape had a place in the Order of the Phoenix as spy in the enemy camp. He was satisfied to be where there was more to learn, and purpose in life. The company wasn't always the most congenial—James Potter was still an arrogant ass—but he knew that fear and coercion would never hang over him in the Order.

*****

**Today**

He bounces the flat of the knife blade off the tips of his fingers, circling Malfoy and considering his options. Lucius' legs are relatively unscarred. "Lie flat," he orders, and he is obeyed. The additional discomfort only adds to Malfoy's desire.

Severus spreads Malfoy's legs with a few kicks, then kneels on the stone between his feet. He cuts, starting below the back of the knee, a long gliding slice, a side cut, another long glide to the sensitive skin above the ankle. Malfoy shivers but does not move. Snape repeats the pattern on the other side, identical, not mirrored. By the time he completes the cut, Malfoy's breath is ragged, but he is not finished.

Severus steps to the fire, gathering cooled ashes from the edge of the hearth in his palm. Carefully, knowing the stinging pain this will cause, he rubs the ashes into the wounds. These will scar nicely. By the time he finishes, Malfoy is arching back, hip canted to one side to free his erection from the cold stone. Severus grinds his thumbs into the ends of both cuts, right above the ankles and waits calmly while Lucius spills his seed, open-mouthed and nearly silent.

He stands, looks down to stare for several moments at his handiwork, then stalks out without a word. He closes the door behind him and dusts the last ashes from his palms, twin images of a lighting bolt scar remaining on his retinas.

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements: Thanks and proper respect for the amazing critques from the Slash and Burn e-list, and to arachne and Mandragora for the lessons in British class behavior. It would not be what it is without them.


End file.
